An artistic intervention? Hirst at Sotheby’s.

There has been a lot of talk recently about Damien Hirst‘s upcoming auction at Sotheby’s, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, where he is slated to offer up 223 new works directly to collectors, bypassing galleries completely. There’s been talk about what this all means, whether this is the first blow to the gallery system that will bring the whole thing crashing down.

Blogger and gallerist Edward Winkleman wrote a post on the matter in which he focuses more on the relationship between an artist and his/her gallery. It’s a very interesting read, though the comments are more interesting than the post itself. It’s brought up that this is similar to the Radiohead model of distribution, where an institution (artist, musician, what have you) at the peak of its game, with the pockets and the street cred to match the gutsiness of their power play, bypasses the usual models of distribution to offer "product" directly to an audience. In Radiohead’s case, it is fans, and in Hirst’s case, collectors. Most artists will never be able to pull off a move like this, and most of Winkleman’s commentors agree that things will probably not change too much because of Hirst’s Sotheby’s auction. A particularly astute commentor by the name of William posts:

"What distinguishes Hirst’s move seems to be the novelty of it. It’s not the impact on the market that I am interested in, but the very act itself as an artistic intervention. I hope other people see this as something of performance in and of itself."

It’s a very interesting point, this one. In it, the actual artwork becomes secondary. These 223 new works are transsubstantiated into props in an "artistic intervention," like buying an edition of a video, or documentation of a performance. There is a very grotesque nihilism in this action if indeed, Hirst means it as an artistic intervention. It belies a bleakness in the understanding and practice of art that outdoes anything Warhol ever did and sets a new low (or high, depending on your affiliation) in the business of art.